Lacuna
by KissMeI'mScottish
Summary: They are two strangers separated by galaxies until a connection through the force brings them together. She's a lost soul fighting for control over her power and hiding from those who have exploited her. He's a faceless dictator fighting against a rebel cause that he will never win until he accepts the light or rejects it forever. They are the missing piece to each others puzzles.
1. Chapter 1: Alone

**Lacuna**

(latin noun: A blank or unfilled space, a missing part)

Chapter One- Alone.

Bella had always had the inkling that everyone else was experiencing life drastically different than what she was. For reasons more than just the usual person who just wants to be different. Isabella had grown up in an orphanage, abandoned at a hospital at only a few days old with only a first name. She was never successfully adopted even though that was very rare for a newly born baby, and the times she'd been fostered she was placed back in the orphanage within weeks.

She believed that she was never adopted because strange things had always happened around her. She could move things without touching them, connect to life and death and everything in between on a level that she soon became aware that others couldn't as soon as she started to perceive the world around her. Sometimes, when she could fully connect to that part of herself it almost made the voices silent.

It wasn't so much a voice as much as a foreign opinion that she was acutely aware wasn't her own, a growing darkness within her. It encouraged hurt and selfishness and revenge. The more she fed it, the stronger it got, a fact which she didn't learn until late in life when she was seventeen. She had night terrors that robbed her of sleep (and therefore mental resistance), and her quick to anger personality was encouraged by this darkness.

On the flip side was a blinding light within her that had always fought against the darkness. That connection she had with the earth helping her get through her hardest moments and forgive herself when she would fail and indulge the darkness.

But the light never prevailed, and she wasn't confident that it ever would, she wouldn't hold her breath for the ability to lead a normal or even a minutely easier life. She constantly battled demons, staying away from other people because darkness seemed to surround her and it put innocent people at risk. She fought loneliness by training her abilities; the progress meant that she was less likely to lose control.

Her breath fogged in the New York air, the cold of it invading her lungs with a painful sharpness. All of the snow had long been turned to slush and then frozen over. She slipped on ice heading into the bar where she worked, her power bubbling up as an instinct to help her but it was an instinct now to suppress it. She caught on to a pipe, grimacing when her fingers brushed something damp and slimy. Working to keep her dirtied hand away from herself and surfaces she pushed her way into the busy downtown Manhattan bar, it was Friday night in the late November and it was ice hockey night.

"You're late." Ned commented dryly with disdain; he didn't like her unless she wore low-cut tops and refined her vocabulary to 'Yes sir!'. She wasn't late, in-fact she was five minutes early to her rota start time but Ned would always demand everyone turn up twenty minutes before their shift started, even though he never paid any of them for it and never turned up early himself. But she was only twenty-one, with no qualifications and she needed the job.

He huffed and the darkness whispered for her to demand respect from him. It was easy to ignore but she still shook her head to clear the voice and pushed through to the small staff room tucked into the broken freezer.

Once she'd washed her hands and removed her coat, she checked herself in the bathroom. Her pale skin was flush from the cold, her long and wavy blue hair falling around herself which she put back into a high pony-tail in case she was handling food later. She usually worked the bar, but Ned would usually take her off bar work unless he was desperate so he could justify taking more of the tips.

She wore a short-sleeved, V- neck black t-shirt that highlighted her assets so that she could make up for the loss of tips later when Ned had to cave and let her on the bar. On her bottom half she simply had on nice fitting black jeans, some weather-proof biker boots and an apron.

She stepped outside and started her shift, serving food and helping in the kitchen until more people would arrive to catch the end of the game. She quietly groaned when taking a customer's food out to them as a familiar feeling of light-headedness and slowness began to creep up on her. She'd been having these feelings the last few months but couldn't afford to go to the doctor. According to Google she was, on top of a long list of things, low on blood sugar or had a terminal brain illness among other urgent life-threatening conditions that Web MD loved. So, no worries there. The only benefit was that it would drown out the voices in her head at its peak.

Jesus, she was just a picture-poster candidate for mental and physical health.

She faded to and from tables, not actively functioning or remembering anything anyone said to her longer than it took to write it down (hopefully nobody asked for ranch because they wouldn't be getting it) when her co-worker Mia finally appeared.

"Bella, you look awful! Are you alright?" Mia was abysmal at putting things lightly but Bella couldn't focus enough to be offended. Mia was pretty and an actress who refused to do anything but theatre, she had golden toned blonde hair and deep brown eyes with sun-kissed skin that she'd acquired from growing up in Arizona. Mia preferred to work more so that she could save money up to visit her British boyfriend, Ben, who works with computers and helped Bella out by putting her in contact with her papers guy who forged her identification so she could get a bank account.

Bella let out a shaky breath, her vision swaying. "Are you having another one of your funny turns?" Mia panicked, always a caring person. She was so kind and had offered to let Bella use her insurance, which was illegal and something Bella couldn't hold on her conscience. But Mia had given Bella her old cell-phone so she could contact her or the hospital should things get more serious.

"Ned wanted you to do the dishes, but if you don't mind seeing to these guys I'd rather not be out front right now." Mia nodded and Bella handed Mia her notepad, stumbling through to the kitchen holding herself up on the counter.

She got herself a glass of water which helped a tiny amount, but her head continued to throb. It had never been this bad before, and she wondered if she was possibly having a brain aneurysm. She shook her head, emptying out her glass of water and controlling her breathing for a few seconds to somehow force it to pass. It seemed to work and her head suddenly became mysteriously lighter, although the world around her still seemed a little disjointed it was enough for her to get back to work. She lifted herself up on the counter, kneeling so that she could get the clean plates from the top shelf, god forbid Ned provided a ladder apart from on health and safety inspections. She needed two stacks to fill up the dispatch station and she didn't want to risk climbing back up when she was feeling unwell. Bella glanced around, a partial and unfamiliar black shape catching the edge of her vision but the turns she was experiencing often made her vision spotty and she thought nothing of it. Assured that nobody was around, she lifted the first stack with her arms and the second with her power.

"I suspected you were sensitive with the force." A deep male voice stated behind with a slightly curious tone and she screamed, dropping the plates and cringing as they crashed to the floor. Whirling around to see the owner of the voice but forgetting she was on the counter, she fell off the counter and onto the ceramic plates and she groaned in pain.

She felt blood trickle down her face from when she had practically head-butted a broken shard of the plates. She struggled to form a coherent thought before remembering the reason for her fall, looking up her eyes connected with those of a man. He was tall and pale, with black chin-length hair and chiselled features. He regarded her with slight surprise but as if he knew her. She knew positively that she didn't know him because he wore such strange clothes, all black and very structured and a heavy black cape. Across his left eyebrow and down his cheek was a thin pink scar, as if he had been slashed in the face.

As soon as she started to form words, Ned stormed in with a look of rage, Mia rushing in behind him but careful to not get in his way. "What the fuck have you done? Are you some sort of idiot?" He yelled in anger. Bella's eyes widened when he passed right through the mysterious man.

Fuck, she'd gone crazy.

"You're not crazy, at least not in the context of this incident." The figure stated, arching a brow as if in humour. She was speechless, could it read her mind?

Well, duh, Bella! If he's in your mind then surely he'd know what was going on in there. She chastised herself as Ned yelled at her more.

"You're fired!" Ned finished off his yelling.

She panicked because she couldn't lose this job. She would struggle to get another one that had a boss as oblivious as Ned and didn't do any sort of identity or background checks. She dramatically collapsed and her head, dripping with blood from surface cuts, gushed heavier with the movement.

"Oh," She groaned in over-emphasised pain, long and dramatic. "If only the proper health and safety procedures were followed but we don't even have a ladder… with no job…" She groaned again in overly exaggerated pain. "With no job, I might have to go on disability because of this workplace accident that…" She paused, trying to think of what the TV adverts said "Wasn't my fault. I might be entitled to compensation."

Ned visibly paled as her imaginary friend visibly laughed, looking confused by all of this. Or maybe just pained to be living in her head. "If you don't breathe a word of this, you can keep your job and I'll pay you double time for the rest of the night while you go home and recover from this light-headedness you're suffering from."

She considered for a second before groaning a little more. "But Ned…what if my face scars, I'll be permanently disfigured and it might affect my future income. I might have to sue for my trouble" She knew full well her face would heal well but she was seeing people who weren't there and she needed time to stop this episode.

"Fuck, Bella. You can work the bar all night next week too." Ned flustered and Bella sprung up a little too enthusiastically with how she was feeling and grabbed a towel which she used to clean her forehead cut.

"You should also clean this up and ask Mia to tend the bar for a bit, or else I might end up with a slipped disc as a result of this." She stated and Ned nodded, huffing. She grinned at him and the other staff members as well and turned to leave out the back, her imaginary friend following her with heavy and real sounding footsteps. She had left her jacket but she would get it tomorrow, she only lived a few blocks away and the cold didn't bother you much.

"Stop!" She heard from the man and felt a hand gripping her arm and spinning her around clear as day. "What planet is this? Who are you?"

"It's not real. It's not real. It's not real." Bella chanted to herself.

She gave him a strange look, her eyes lingering on his hand on her arm which she could feel as vividly as her own feet touching the floor. "I am Kylo Ren of the First Order, and you will tell me who you are. You are not the only one sensitive to the force!" His voice was rough and demanding and she yanked out of his grip, walking out of the alleyway and jaywalking onto the street in an attempt to get away from this man/thing.

His yelling continued behind her as she sprinted onto the pavement again.

"It's not real. It's not real. It's not real." She chanted to herself, walking quickly and staring at the pavement until a few cautious peaks before she reached her apartment told her she was alone. She glanced around the street, seeing nobody familiar before stepping into her building.

She would just take it easy for a few days, de-stress, and she would be fine. People had weird mental episodes all the time, and it didn't mean there was anything wrong. It was just another thing that she might have to keep under control.

She would be fine.


	2. Chapter 2: Control

'Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly.'

 _Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare._

Chapter Two- Control.

Working in bars and clubs was a specific choice for Bella, one that she would benefit from every single day when she awoke screaming from her sleep with a night terror and didn't get evicted. She'd had these terrors ever since she could remember, dreams of fire and screaming and being attacked by a man with an angered old face. It was around these times that the negative impulses that threatened to push her off balance were at their strongest.

She had kicked her sheets off long ago, and her bedroom was uncomfortably hot. She usually wore a t-shirt to bed and avoided thick duvets even in the winter because she despised the feeling of being too warm. She sat on the edge of her bed and picked up the white sheet and grey blanket that she had kicked off. Turning on her air-conditioning, she stumbled through to her bathroom in bare feet intent on clearing her nightmares away by splashing her face with cold water.

She left the rest of her apartment in darkness, squinting when she turned the light on as the fluorescent light blinded her vision. Taking the bun that she would put her hair in for sleeping down, she splashed her face with cold water.

She tried hard not to think (freak-out) about how she couldn't afford this happening in her life. She couldn't afford a downward spiral. She put so much effort into appearing normal that her misfortune had made her livid. She was very religious, but sometimes she had no reason not to believe that she was born into this world purely as entertainment, she could very well be some higher powers' late night television. Are ratings down? Heck, let's just make our favourite freak start seeing people who aren't there! She mocked in her head.

She kept a strict routine to avoid these kinds of events. She woke up at the same time every day, poured cereal with milk that she always had because she bought it on her way home from work on Tuesdays. She had taken meticulous control of everything in her life to avoid chaos and existential crisis' and contemplation on the fact that she could kill someone without a weapon in her hand or without even looking at them. And right now her hands were shaking to control the urge not to lash out, to not destroy the mirror and the room and so on. This happened every time something slipped, any-time she had to derail her safe routine. The power of her will is unstoppable when unleashed, and so it must be controlled.

" _For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Do not be afraid, for I myself will help you,_ " She chanted until her hands didn't shake as much and the crimson red flashes had faded, and the taunts in her mind had quietened down.

"Those with the Force should not be afraid." An unwanted deep voice spoke from behind her and she gasped, spinning around in fright and throwing him back into the wall with her power. It was only the confusion of it working on a delusion that made her hold on the man slip where he tumbled to the floor.

"You need to leave. I don't know why you're here, but I can't deal with this. I don't even have fucking health insurance." She muttered the last part to herself and stormed out of the bathroom into the living room. Would alcohol help with her situation? She couldn't afford mental health treatment and-

Her thoughts were interrupted by her body becoming locked in place where she had previously been anxiously pacing, and she looked up to where she could feel a disturbance coming from. "I am Kylo Ren of the First Order, and you will tell me where you are."

She blanched "What?" Was she still asleep?

His expression became irritated. "No, you are not still asleep, stupid girl. I am Kylo Ren of the First Order and-"

She cut him off. "What is that? Is that a cult?"

His facial expression froze on the impassive, and something told her that was his mask for confusion before he stalked over to her window and roughly tugged the curtains open. He stayed there for quite a few minutes while she just stressed in her mind at the situation.

He spun around quickly, black cape twisting around him. "These star patterns are wrong. I don't recognise any of this. How advanced is your technology?"

"I think phones have face scanners now. They programmed the Mars rover to sing happy birthday. Cars can drive themselves but the people who want then can't afford it and the people who can afford them already pay people to drive them around." Her tone was uninformed and slightly confused, and she was released from what was holding her.

He looked unimpressed by her answer and ran a hand over the scar-free side of his face. "I don't know why this has happened. I connected with you for the first time a few days ago, and it was only today that you saw me yourself. The force is strong with you, but it is also untouched here, apart from with you."

She had been thinking of ways to pull herself out of this dream, pinching herself and commanding herself to wake up and nothing was working. She gently picked up her keys and tossed them, watching with wide eyes as they hit his torso and fell to the floor at his feet. It had been a physicality test as she knew enough about delusional illnesses and how they worked, and it was her understanding that they weren't fool-proof to things like that.

She froze, staring at his torso when she suddenly realised she was standing talking to this strange and apparently real man who was uninvited but had let himself into her home and workplace none-the-less, in nothing but an oversized t-shirt.

"Get out." She commanded, and he stared her down with an impassive look. "Get out, get out, get out!" She yelled, using her power to throw a vase at him when he disappeared before her very eyes and the vase smashed against the wall.

How had Ned walked through him, and how the fuck could nobody else see him?

Work the next day had taken her mind off of things because she was working the bar while Ned trained a new staff member, Kyle. The guy was nice but held his looks to very high regard and seemed to expect others to as well.

Mia could tell there was something off about her and kept bugging her to see if she was alright, truth be told she'd had a killer migraine ever since the last time she'd saw the strange man. She'd had all night and day to think about this, and now she just needed to know the logistics before she could wrap her head around it.

It had quietened down, and they weren't serving food anymore so she'd asked Mia to cover the bar and stepped out into the back alley, closing the door completely.

"Hello?" She asked, wondering when he was there or if he was always there and just decided when to make himself known. Nothing happened.

She pictured his face, how tall he was and his voice trying to conjure the delusion if it was one, although she was pretty unconvinced on that front now.

Suddenly, she was surrounded by black gloss floor and black tinted glass that had doorways every few feet along the corridor. In front of her was the strange man.

"Holy shit." She breathed at her surroundings. She could feel the same New York Chill against her skin. However, she was far away from home now as far as she could see. Could they instantly teleport to each other?

"No," He stated, slightly less impassive than usual. "You are still in that alleyway, and right now only I can see you, the Force is connecting us."

She shot him a confused look, wondering how far away he was. Was he in the Milky Way?

He let out a loud laugh "The what?"

"How do you do that?!" She demanded furiously, willing him to stay out of her head. It wasn't fair that he could do that and didn't disclaim it .

"I'll have to teach you more about the Force, and figure out what to do with this connection we have."

"You keep talking about the force, what is that?" She asked with furrowed eyebrows, this cultural barrier was inconvenient and she wondered why they were connected when they were physically nowhere near each other and couldn't impact the world around them.

"The force is everything, not all can feel it, and even fewer can manipulate it." He answered, "Are your parents' force sensitive?"

"I don't know." She answered, glancing around absently for a window. "I don't know them, I mean. I don't think that's what I have, though."

"It is the force, I can sense it. And those who raised you didn't teach you about the force?" He paused between sentences as if re-wording his question.

"No one raised me, and even then nobody knows." She paused, debating whether to mention her peers who had abilities but don't seem to be connected to the force before realising he had probably already heard her allude to it in her mind. "There's fucky stuff but that's nothing similar to what I can do, and it's nowhere near common." She added but continued before he could ask her to elaborate. "So… where are you?"

"I'm commanding a fleet tracking a rebellion ship." He seemed bored with his answer, but she perked up and asked if he was a sea captain.

He made a face that almost seemed like amusement. "No, a spacecraft."

Her expression was shocked. "Spacecraft." She repeated in a whisper, finally piecing together that they most definitely weren't on the same planet and he was travelling through space. She was technically talking to an alien, proof that Earth was not the only intelligent life in the universe. "Where are your windows?!" She squealed after a fleeting thought about what the stars must look like from space. "Do the stars look further apart up there than when you're on a planet? I swear they always look so close together when you're down there. It's so weird to think that every star in the sky is like another sun and around the stars might be o-" He cut off her rambling.

"Do you always talk this much? Has anyone ever enlightened you to how annoying it is?" He snapped at her, and she flinched. His words were something that could easily go over her head, but it was his tone that struck her. She fought the memories, locking them away. She didn't need to be reminded of the man who had used her desire for a connection to mind-twist her into doing his bidding.

She let out an annoyed huff and answered "No, I don't actually. And no, I thought it was apparent that I don't have anyone around to be annoyed by me. I guess it's nice to know that basic kindness is alien to you too." She closed off their connection and headed back to work.


	3. Chapter 3: Fences

****** Suicide is mentioned in this chapter, and in later chapters. It isn't a main theme but if you would rather not read about it then skip the bold parts. ******

' _Dark days made me strong. Or maybe I was already strong and they made me prove it.'_

 _\- Emery Lord_

Chapter Three- Fences.

 _When Bella had first met Rosalie and Jasper, it was as they unpleasantly interrupted her bitch-face intimidation tactics that she used in the lunch room to keep people away from her table. Rosalie invaded first, and Jasper followed like a loyal companion. She'd come to be jealous of them; that they had someone that they could undoubtedly rely on._

 _She soon ruined that._

 _"You shouldn't scowl like that. You'll get premature wrinkles." Rosalie said as she plonked down in the chair next to her, but leaving one empty to separate them. Bella just replied with a look that said 'Do I look like I give a fuck?'_

 _"So how'd they die, the 'rents?" A confused look from Bella that Rose would elaborate meant parents._

 _"I don't know." Her tone was detached as she stared at a young girl at the end of the cafeteria who withering an apple she held in her hands. Perhaps some people should be locked in here._

 _"Oh…" Rosalie drawled out dramatically but lacking the emotion people usually had when discussing this subject. "Abandonment," she continued "That's lifelong troubles right there. Nobody ever kicks that."_

 _"It's a good thing I'm not in it for the long haul." Bella commented dryly, still focusing on the girl. She couldn't have been any older than fourteen._

 _"What happened to your hair?" Rose asked, leaning forward toward her. "You've been here for three weeks. It should've grown out. They don't let us have bleach in here in case we fucking drink it." Rose's hair was a honey blond with a mix of lighter and darker blonde highlights. Cut straight and choppy but long. It was then that she noticed that Rose was that kind of pretty where you did a double take because you aren't sure that what you were looking at the first time was real._

 _"I don't know." Bella commented again._

 _"Fuck," Rose commented "You don't know an awful lot. Do you?"_

 _Sometimes the world was overwhelming for Bella. The lights too loud and the noises too bright. The particles in the air too heavy and the life running through the leaves in summer too offensive. Sometimes, she would have to lie down and breathe until she felt herself melt into the sky or the darkness. And that is what happened right now. The world slowed and the lights buzzed with such intensity that she felt the tingle, she felt the life leaving the flower that the girl was draining and she felt the breathing of every person in the room invading the air. And then she caught Jasper's eye, who was looking at her like he could feel all of what she was feeling. So she smiled the tiniest amount, letting the tension snap in the air so she could breathe again._

 _"No, I guess I don't." She stated as she got up and left to return to her room, no trash from lunch to throw away._

\\_/

He'd left her to her own devices, but the connection had changed like the edges were touching and it would just take a tap to reconnect. She didn't take the bait because she was stubborn and he'd offended her. He'd lashed out at her when all she'd done was be excited about something unknown to her, but she supposed it was better she discover out what kind of person he was in the beginning and react accordingly than find out later.

But if he was nit-picking about her annoying personality, she had some things to say about that cape he wore.

She wasn't embarrassed by her actions, and she didn't think her excitement was unwarranted, she believed that he was slightly unreasonable. She also hoped that space never got so dull to her that she got annoyed at someone for being excited about it.

She finished up her shift, talking with the new waiter Kyle who informed her he was also an actor. She suppressed an eye-roll but wasn't surprised because he was attractive like most of the young men who pass through New York but shortly leave after finding out they are not the most beautiful person on earth just because a lot of people thought so in college. That thinking may seem condescending on her behalf but most of the people that passed through bar and service jobs.

"Do you know if there's a computer place around here?" Kyle asked, drying a glass behind the bar. "Like somewhere I can put a video from my phone onto a CD?"

Bella scanned her mind, unsure. "There was a Radioshack on 6th that I got my computer from, but that closed down a few months ago. I don't know if the library would have what you need."

"Does your computer have a CD drive?" Kyle inquired, and Bella nodded. "Could I borrow it sometime soon? It'll only take ten minutes." Bella agreed and slipped out the front door as Ned grabbed the keys, and she was followed by Kyle shortly after as Ned set the alarm code.

\\_/

"These things get better when you face them." The voice of Kylo Ren was present before he was, and he fell into step beside her mid-sentence. "Your guard failed, rather easily actually, we'll need to fix that."

She stopped in her tracks, staring at him with tear-filled eyes which she trained long ago to never betray her and fall before starting off on her walk again.

She mulled his words over in her mind, deciding how best to respond but she knew anyway that he was listening.

"I didn't intend to be rude, just that you don't have any training with the force or anything beyond a superficial knowledge. Given how powerful you already are, training would allow undisputed power." Her eyes narrowed at him as she opened her door, and she noted to herself and him that she had no interest in being undisputed.

She was much happier being disputed and also left alone.

He shot her a look that said that he didn't understand that notion, but informed her of development exercises she could do to work with the force in the more traditional way. Meditation is at the top of his list.

"I'm not fond of it, but it smooths out the edges. Erratic bursts of power are less common the more you do it, and helps you to remain hidden." He stated but paused, "If that is your desire."

"Are you offering me another option?" She asked with a smirk on her lips

"Besides death, I've already given that a go." She continued

He appeared in front of her, and she stopped in her tracks. He was standing on the step up from her which made him impossibly taller as he looked down at her.

"That's the easy way out. The coward's way." He seemed offended.

She grinned at him, in that twisted way that seemed unique to her when broaching this subject. "On the contrary, I'll have you know that staying awake while taking enough pills to achieve the desired effect is rather difficult and will more likely end up with you waking up in your vomit with a killer headache." She was mocking his tone a little. A lot.

"You were alone." He commented, having plucked the circumstance from her brain.

"Yeah, and pretty drunk too." She didn't drink much anymore. It's hard being alone.

"You don't have to be. Not anymore." Alone or drunk?

He disappeared as she climbed the three floors to her apartment, but reappeared in her Livingroom as she locked her door.

"I was raised on the other side of a war that I am now leading," He commented dryly "And yet you hide from yours."

"Not my fight." She replied non-committedly. "Not anymore." He arched a non-scarred eyebrow in question, and she sighed before continuing. "I'm tired. I've been fighting for my entire life, and it's not who I am anymore."

She would always check-up on her comrades, but she could no longer fight with them. Her soul scarred from fighting battles that were never truly hers, battles fought on the basis of money or statement or power that at the time had been fed to her as a different cause.

Justice, she had learned, was a farce. It was not served, you had to get your own.

"You don't fight," he said "but you're not free either. You hide and run, hoping that someday you won't be worth the chase. Perhaps, if you don't agree with the motivations for each side of this fight then you should create your own."

While Bella would like to say she'd done something productive with her insomnia fuelled early morning time, she'd done nothing more than making best friends with a cheap bottle of wine and a Netflix show. Around three in the morning, she passed out on the couch with the bottle in her hand.

 _She didn't know how long she'd been in this room, but it couldn't have been long. They'd kept her out of it with drugs after capturing her, and even with what had happened to her she couldn't regret saving that little boy from being hit by that car. The busy street with the camera's and the eyewitnesses was her kryptonite, but if it had to be a trade of her having to die so that little boy could live she was happy to make it. He couldn't have been older than four years old, and his mother was a single parent, but she could tell by looking at him that she would raise him to be a good person. Better than she ever would be._

 _On the table in front of her was a meal with one of those little wooden forks that were impossible to turn into a weapon. The meal was some chicken, and she obliterated it with her mind before her hunger got too intense that she might consider eating it._

 _She would never want the meat, but she didn't want them to get any satisfaction from putting her in the position of needing it. She could already feel the ache of an empty stomach setting in, but it was a feeling she was familiar with._

 _"I see you're all up and working." A disembodied voice floated through the speakers into the room. "I take it the meal wasn't to your liking."_

 _She stared at the wall for a while longer before the voice floated through the speakers again._

 _"You know, there are other people here like you. We're not here to hurt you; we're here to make you safe and help you grow so you can realise your full potential." If she focused on the voice too hard, she picked up that it was too right and felt wrong. It had an almost hypnotising lullaby quality to it._

 _She was sure the fucking horse tranquilisers made her safe._

 _"You know, if I didn't have an inkling of what you wouldn't hesitate to do to me, I would be talking to you face to face. But until you understand that I don't want to hurt you and you prove to me that you won't try to hurt me, I can't do that."_

 _She laughed, bitterly. The man was asking for trust. He'd fed her horse tranquilisers, thrown in the back of a van, tied her to a fucking table and He. Was. Asking. For. Trust._

 _She felt a threat on her tongue and bit it. Actions speak louder than words. She didn't need to act impulsively just to say something that she might not be rewarded a reaction to. It was better for the man to think that she trusted him and then watch the life in his eyes drain as she snapped his neck._

 _Or whatever._

She woke up in the tangled sheets of her bed.

 **A/N: I had to re-post this because of dodgy formatting that would confuse things Present time is normal font, flashbacks or dreams will be in italics and normal page breaks look like this: \\_/**

 **Sorry this took a while, I had uni work to do that I definitely did not leave until the day it was due to finish… 4pm deadlines just challenge the procrastinator in me.**

 **I'm laying some of the groundwork for the incorporation for future characters that are going to be in this. I know the flashbacks are two very different personalities of the same character, younger Bella is very angry at the world and pessimistic about life.**

 **The views on suicide expressed in this writing are not my own. Suicide is a very permanent solution to a temporary problem. If you are struggling it is always best to talk to someone you trust that can help you, I'd easily say that there are more people that can relate to these feelings than can't so don't be worried to reach out and talk to someone even if it's just to say "I'm feeling a bit sad today."**

 **Thanks for reading. Leave a review if you liked it, or didn't. Or if you'd like to guess how Bella got to her bed.**


	4. Chapter 4: Silence

'It is better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not.'

 _Autumn Leaves, André Gide._

Chapter Four: Silence.

' _The gift of hindsight must be an incredible power. Bella would imagine it to be one of the most coveted, and God knew she could have done with it right now._

 _Cullen, the creep who abducted her, had started 'training' her. He wanted to get a feel for the extent of what she could do, and she had gone and given up the ghost right away. She could only imagine her desire must have been to intimidate him or something because she wasn't normally that kind of person. After all, she'd been raised her entire life to be untrusting considering the fact she'd grown up in the foster care system and had been homeless. The situation itself was eerie because she couldn't remember what happened, why she'd agreed so easily when it was so against her character, just that he'd asked and she complied._

 _For a total of six weeks, Bella had been in this stupid facility that she couldn't find a way out of, mainly because she didn't know where she was. Her power was unstoppable when she knew where to send it, but she had no feel for the place, and she wouldn't know how to get out her way without causing the structure to crash down around her._

 _She had a strong feeling that the facility was underground, as it seemed to have a high-tech ventilation system that nobody would invest in unless it was vital for it to work correctly all of the time, like if they were far underground. But the vents weren't big enough for anywhere near a child to fit through never mind her. And yes, she could fight her way out, but she had no idea how big this place was or how many staff there were or what abilities they might have._

 _Everyone here could do messed up things that were so messed up. A guy that could cut off all of your senses, his twin that could kick your pain receptors into overdrive._

 _Jasper is an empath; he can mess with emotions. She didn't know what Rosalie did, but Bella had noticed that she always wore a strange material of gloves and if that had anything to do with it._

" _You've lost another twelve pounds since last week. This hunger strike is immature and idiotic. You were already underweight when you joined us, and if you continue like this, you will die." Dr Daddy Cullen stated factually. She didn't know if Dr DC was Cullen's father or his brother, but she did know their names were the same. Dr DC was older, you could tell that, but did look different besides core similarities like eyes and nose and those little things that just ran in families. Dr DC was slightly shorter, thinner, had blonde hair and a more gaunt face. Still attractive, just in a more niche way than most people._

 _"I don't think 'joined us' is the right term to use considering that I was drugged and thrown in a van and most definitely do not want to be here." Bella spat, tears threatening to sting her eyes but she willed them away. Fuck, she'd thought that sleeping on the streets was the worst thing that had ever happened to her._

 _Dr DC sighed, pausing in his paper fiddling to grip on to the table so hard she thought it would crack. Was he going to hit her? Bella studied him carefully, his teeth clenched but it seemed more like the appearance of someone who had touched a burning stove and was resisting the screaming instinct to remove their hand, despite the pain. "You have peers here that could understand you if you let them, people, willing to help you train your powers-"_

" _For what? Shouldn't that be my decision, whether to use them or not? What exactly could I even use them for down here?" Her questions were desperate. She'd lived on the streets long enough to know that to survive you had to make yourself as uninteresting and unuseful as possible. "I don't hurt people, things. I can't even hit a bee if it stings me. I haven't eaten meat since I was six." It was all true, but she'd happily snap Cullen's neck for daring to fuck with her._

" _You'll learn. I'm giving you 24 hours to eat a meal, or I'll be forced to update Cullen on your little strike and believe me it is better for both of us if he doesn't know."_

" _He can't force me to eat." Bella protested. "I refuse to become his little puppet."_

 _Dr DC regarded her with tired blue eyes that flashed with something she could only uncertainly claim as hopelessness before he said. "Believe me, he can and you will."'_

 _\\_/_

Bella liked to sit on the roof at night. It wasn't something she did a lot because then the maintenance would catch on and change the lock, but she liked to do it on clear nights which were rare in the city. She brought a crappy little lawn chair up with her and sat looking at the stars for hours.

Kylo had been here awhile, just contemplating with her. He was leaning against the wall next to her chair, breeze blowing his cape around him. She wondered if capes were a thing where he came from or if he was a misfit in wearing one. She pondered over a lot of things about him.

"What's it like where you come from?" She asked, tilting her head back in her lawn chair to look at him. He looked a little taken aback by her question like he expected her to ask him something else.

"I was born on a world called Chandrila." He started slowly, and it struck her that he was going over what truths he wanted to tell her and what he wanted to leave out. She turned in her chair to give him her full attention and his mouth opened to speak but he paused for a moment longer, regarding her, before he continued. "It is beautiful and tame. My mother was a high-ranking government official and my father a scavenger, and both were rarely around, so I had a lot of opportunities to explore. The weather is mild so sometimes I would leave the city and just go out into the forests and explore."

"What was the city like?"

"More advanced than this one and not as cramped. Everything was close but there was always an air of space. I'd compare it to your city but cleaner, less grey and without as many homeless." Bella snorted loudly, she did think New York was too grey and apparently New York thought the same thing with the number of glass skyscrapers popping up.

"And you?" Kylo asked and Bella's eyebrows raised in question but his facial expression remained the same, inquisitive, and she assumed this was a manifestation of his dislike of repeating himself.

"I was born in a different country to this one, Italy. I don't remember much about it but I only remember sun and grass and rolling hills. I lived in an orphanage there until I was five and an American couple adopted me and they brought me here. Shortly after my papers were finalised and I was officially an American citizen, they got into a car accident and died. Social Services tried to send me back to Italy but they refused because I had picked up English quickly and they were worried I wouldn't settle back in. So I just bounced from foster homes back into group homes until I ran away before I turned eighteen."

"Did you go back home?" Kylo asked and she shook her head.

"There was nothing there for me; I'm an orphan." She shrugged.

"And why did you leave the homes you had here?"

"The foster homes are families that take in kids and are their caregivers until they turn eighteen and become an adult. But a lot of people are only in it for the money they get from the government and don't look after the kids. I was in about three to five foster homes a year until I was fourteen and most of them were awful, the best case scenario was that they didn't beat the ever-loving shit out of you and the worst made you want to die." Her mind wandered to that night when she was fourteen and James had finally made his move. She was in her final home for three weeks with a married couple, his wife was a nurse and gone most of the time and James was a fucking creep. He would watch her and make any excuse to touch her, each day inching more and more toward inappropriate. She would lie awake staring at her bedroom door at night where he would pause each night by her door, sometimes standing there for almost an hour. Then, he started coming in.

"The group homes were better but still awful. They take like fifteen kids that have a whole variety of mental issues from unstable upbringings and they make them live together and expect it to all be okay. But anything I had was getting stolen, they'd constantly try to bait me into fights and I swear at one point they were putting drugs in my food."

"I've lived in a similar situation, not as hostile but I can sympathise," Kylo commented and Bella raised an eyebrow in question.

"My mother sent me to train in the force with my uncle, hoping it would push the darkness at bay, and he tried to kill me in my sleep."

"Shit," Bella breathed. "I still win the shitty upbringing category but you get serious points for that one." He exhaled a short chuckle and she yawned.

"So what's with the name? Kylo Ren of the Knights of Ren. Is that like a house or something?" Now that she thought of it the name sounded royal, although she didn't even know if they had royals where he was from.

"I was born Ben Solo. My current name is one I adopted after cutting ties with my family and the rebellion." The conversation lilted then, and she knew he knew he'd said too much and he was watching her intently, listening to her thoughts and gauging her reaction.

His mother was a 'high ranking government official' probably less government and more rebellion, but she knew he was high ranking now but if he'd cut ties with his mother he obviously didn't work with her. She didn't know how big his government was but from the way he spoke of it he didn't pass her in the hallways or see her much at all.

Had he switched sides from the rebellion after his uncle tried to murder him?

 _\\_/_

 **A/N: I had this written up on Monday but had no time to edit it, I'm**

 **sorry. I've planned for an extra update soon**

 **(My 'schedule' is once a week and preferably on a Monday so far.) I missed last weeks update because it was my birthday , I sat and passed my drivers test and had about 10,000 collective words of essays due. I'm a final year univerity student and I sometimes might be too busy having a mental breakdown.**

 **Chapter song: Silence- Marshmello, Khalid, Rude Kid (REMIX) (better**

 **than the O.G! All chapters are inspired by a song which will be listed here from no**

 **w on. Chapter 1 was Alone- Halsey, Chapter 2 was Control- Halsey, Chapter 3 was Fences- Paramore.)**

 **Thanks for reading. Leave a review if you liked it, or if you didn't. Or if you'd like to guess what the puppet thing was about.**


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